Why is it normal/OK to be obese in Ireland?.

polan wrote: »

I'm overweight, just a tad under obese and... I agree. There is absolutely no excuse for this. I'm just a lazy prick who can't be arsed to change their eating habits and exercise.

Me too...

Regarding walking I actually realized something: When you live in the sticks in a small village the next village is usually a tad to far away to do the regular walk. While the drive is only a few minutes the walk can easily take you 1 - 1,5 hours for one way. And they are usually not too pleasant since there aren't any paths and you have to walk on the streets. Throw some kids in the mix and you really have to plan your daily walk.

Designated walking routes are one thing, but if I'd like to walk to the next village I certainly can only take the main road up. Unfortunately in many places there aren't walking routes connecting villages. I have a few gorgeous walking routes around but they all go in circles and don't lead anywhere really.
Walking everywhere only really works in towns and cities, when you're rural you have to go for specific walks because taking the car is so much more convenient.
Not giving out, just an observation.

Hitman3000 wrote:

So it's ok to make a claim but no requirement to back it up? So it's acceptable to make up any auld crap grand so.

I'd love to meet your old English teacher, they must have pontificated with every sentence commencing with So in a rhetorical manner to belittle you..

LirW wrote: »

Designated walking routes are one thing, but if I'd like to walk to the next village I certainly can only take the main road up. Unfortunately in many places there aren't walking routes connecting villages. I have a few gorgeous walking routes around but they all go in circles and don't lead anywhere really.
Walking everywhere only really works in towns and cities, when you're rural you have to go for specific walks because taking the car is so much more convenient.
Not giving out, just an observation.

Im not referring to designated walking routes..im saying that a person can walk quite safely on rural roads if they are off major roads..the Irish countryside is littered with boreens...just find them and map a route out and away you go.

Granted you may need to drive to a starting point and park up and then begin the walk

Where I live the villages are connected with pretty much one road. No walking paths through the farmlands really. Some parts have "shortcuts" that are a bit aside but only the main road leads to the village really. But it's not even the problem, it's more that people are driving really fast on these narrow and curvy roads that can make it really dangerous for pedestrians, especially in Twilight hours. I wouldn't feel comfortable walking on a few of them, nevermind sending my kids to walk to the GAA pitch that's like 3 km away.

Nettle Soup wrote: »

Drop Irish and Religion in schools and make nutrition & healthy cooking compulsory as well as increasing time doing PE. Physical activity is as important as a balanced diet. Religion can be done after school, at home or at weekends. It's a horrible waste of time when this epidemic is happening.

In 20 years, people will look back and laugh at what we prioritised in schools.

In our local school we have a few Mammies campaigning at the school gate to reduce the amount of PE/ sport in the school

There was a suicide thread on After Hours not long ago. There was no purposeful and malicious attempts to mislead the masses about suicide, which the OP has done here. There was no petty and stupid back-and-forths. There was no crass generalisations about people who have or have considered taken their own life. There was, however, a lot of the same empathy and compassion which these obesity threads tend to lack in spades. Why was there compassion and empathy? Because it's a very real, very sensitive and very serious subject. Guess what, so is obesity, but for some horrific reason we feel entitled to be far more flippant and reckless about one growing trend in Irish society and very cautious and very humanly about the other. They wouldn't get away with getting their facts and stats wrong in a discussion about suicide. Why is it okay in this setting? It's not, but at the same time it is.

I'm protective about threads of this nature for two reasons: a) I used to be obese and b) I can't stand the fact - and tragically it is a fact - that people feel entitled to share an opinion on a subject that they know nothing about. Worse yet, people like the OP have no desire to form a valid opinion. If he did then why in the name of Mike did he claim Ireland had a worse problem than the United States when it would've taken him literally less than 10 seconds to discover that wasn't the case? Because he, like many others with the same opinion on the topic, is utterly reckless with what he says about obesity.

He has a very clear and very bias agenda to make obese people look as worse as possible by spreading untruths - some would call them lies - and offering up a totally false and totally skewed portrayal of them. It hurts because in spite of the fact this is an internet forum, it's also a platform to give a lot people a fresh perspective on things. It's a platform to influence their opinion which they may go and take out into the real world with them, and that's a major problem. He is reinforcing the idea that obese people and morbidly obese people deserve condemnation when, actually, it's compassion.

Like a man or woman contemplating suicide, a lot of obese people are suffering in a major way. It's just a lot harder to hide their pain because it manifests itself in over eating and consequently weight gain.

Hammer89 wrote: »

There was a suicide thread on After Hours not long ago. There was no purposeful and malicious attempts to mislead the masses about suicide, which the OP has done here. There was no petty and stupid back-and-forths. There was no crass generalisations about people who have or have considered taken their own life. There was, however, a lot of the same empathy and compassion which these obesity threads tend to lack in spades. Why was there compassion and empathy? Because it's a very real, very sensitive and very serious subject. Guess what, so is obesity, but for some horrific reason we feel entitled to be far more flippant and reckless about one growing trend in Irish society and very cautious and very humanly about the other. They wouldn't get away with getting their facts and stats wrong in a discussion about suicide. Why is it okay in this setting? It's not, but at the same time it is.

I'm protective about threads of this nature for two reasons: a) I used to be obese and b) I can't stand the fact - and tragically it is a fact - that people feel entitled to share an opinion on a subject that they know nothing about. Worse yet, people like the OP have no desire to form a valid opinion. If he did then why in the name of Mike did he claim Ireland had a worse problem than the United States when it would've taken him literally less than 10 seconds to discover that wasn't the case? Because he, like many others with the same opinion on the topic, is utterly reckless with what he says about obesity.

He has a very clear and very bias agenda to make obese people look as worse as possible by spreading untruths - some would call them lies - and offering up a totally false and totally skewed portrayal of them. It hurts because in spite of the fact this is an internet forum, it's also a platform to give a lot people a fresh perspective on things. It's a platform to influence their opinion which they may go and take out into the real world with them, and that's a major problem. He is reinforcing the idea that obese people and morbidly obese people deserve condemnation when, actually, it's compassion.

Like a man or woman contemplating suicide, a lot of obese people are suffering in a major way. It's just a lot harder to hide their pain because it manifests itself in over eating and consequently weight gain.

Same, but it swings in another way for me.

I was overweight to obese; I'm one of the few people who was able to keep the weight off and completely physically transformed myself by lifting weights. No joke. The magic of the iron lads.

Naively, I thought that people around me would be some tiny bit happy for me and when they asked for my advice and I gave it, they would appreciate it.

What I got was passive aggressive responses to outright "I'm talking crap, feck off" even though I am a walking example of what works and what can be done.

Irish people love seeing other people fail and hate seeing other people succeed. My sympathy for people who are overweight to obese is in a lot of cases fairly low. The whole thing made me more cynical, a pouty pumpkin. People can dig there own way down and tend to stay there.